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"The privilege of a lifetime is being one's self."
A Tear and a Smile
Becoming a Dreamer
Since ancient times, man has interpreted his dreams as "messages from his gods." Many of us are dreamers; we live, interpret and bring dreams into our physical lives as a way of manifesting the wills of our Higher Selves. Many of us also assist other people to understand their own dreams and to benefit from understanding how to bring them into life.
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Psychologists in the early 20th Century also taught that dreams can be considered messages from the collective and personal unconscious. Focusing on the subconscious, Sigmund Freud diagnosed mental and emotional illnesses from patient dreams. And CG Jung extended the interpretation of dreams into understanding the relationship of man to the Collective Unconscious. Today, dream interpretation is a common practice among psychotherapists worldwide in treating mental illness.
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Even the ancient Toltecs and Mayan peoples of Central or South America used dreams to understand themselves better. The Maya taught that mankind has within it living energies whose task it is to teach us through our dreams. These living "beings" were referred to as the Kachinahey, or "the Dream Teachers."
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Dreams in native cultures are treated with great respect, and many times conversation around the family table revolves around the dreams of the night before. Everyone takes a turn at telling about their dreams and receiving the thoughtful interpretations other family members make of them.
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In order to use dreams in our own search for meaning and life, we need to teach ourselves to remember them. Here are several techniques you might find useful for helping recall your own dreams:
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Take dreams seriously and respect them.
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Meditate or pray daily.
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Keep a dream journal and record dreams upon awakening.
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Build a dream altar, holding power items or spiritually significant images which appear in your dreams, like animal figures, so that you will continuously remind yourself of the meanings of past dreams..
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Frequently imagine yourself remembering, recording, and interpreting your dreams with great enjoyment.
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Make a ritual at bedtime to focus attention on dreams.
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As you go to sleep, use a dream affirmation as a mantra (like repeating 7 to 9 times "I am remembering my dreams!)
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Upon awakening, hold the body still.
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Think about people, animals, and objects familiar to you in waking life.
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Try vitamin B (especially B6 before going to bed.
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It is said by many that dreams are filled with symbols of ourselves and our issues of life. Each "person" or object or event in a dream has a meaning beyond its apparent literal meaning to us, and custom has it that each image is in fact an aspect of our own personalities. The conscious mind deals mostly with language and images from everyday life. The dream world communicates without personality or language—although it is apparent it understands language for language happens in the dream. To learn to work with your dreams means you have to learn to communicate with a level of "mind" which has no personality or language other than symbolic images.
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I decided some years ago to use the Jungian archetypal images as my dream dictionary so that I could conscientiously cover the gamut of dream images which arose from my own unconscious, and so I subscribed to that lineage--rather than continuing to figure out the meaning of these images out of context. The consciousness of the Collective Consciousness and Collective Unconsciousness holds all the images of mankind, including any that I personally might be aware of. So when I receive some image not in my dictionary of images, I must seek intuitively for an understanding of such symbols.
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You can decide for yourself how you wish to pursue this "meanings" topic. But you must derive some sense of joy or happiness from interacting with the Dream Teachers. Impatience won’t help. Nor will your need to be in charge, so do your own work as best as you can.
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This means you must learn the language of your Dream Teachers. Or you may "negotiate" a language of symbols and images to serve as a kind of language. Intent matters here. Decide that "this" image must mean "that" and it will serve as that from now on.
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